Saxon post milestone

A Saxon post milestone (German: kursächsische Postmeilensäule, colloquially sächsische Postmeilensäule or Postsäule) was a milestone in the former Electorate of Saxony that gave distances expressed as journey times to the nearest eighth of an hour. With one hour being the equivalent of one league, this corresponds to a distance of about 566 m. The design of the milestones varied according to the distance at which they were placed. They were hewn from natural stone into the shape of an obelisk, an ancient herma or a stele. Their prototype was the Roman milestone. From its German name römische Meilensäule the rather inaccurate German description of Säule (lit.: "column") was derived. The Saxon head postal director (Oberpostdirektor), Paul Vermehren, brought about their inception based on official distance surveys, whose results were given in leagues on the post mileposts. A league in Saxony at that time (1722 to 1840) was meant to be an hour's journey, equivalent to half a mile or 4.531 kilometres.

Saxon post milestones were set up during the reign of August the Strong and his successor along all important postal and trading routes and in almost all towns in the Electorate of Saxony to indicate the official distances. This was intended to be the basis for the creation of a unified calculation of postal charges. Because the territory of the Electorate of Saxony was larger than that of the present-day German state of Saxony, these milestones are nowadays also found in the states of Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt, as well as in Poland.

The locations and images of surviving or replaced Saxon milestones may be seen in the .

In 1695, the head of the Saxon post office, Oberpostmeister Ludwig Wilhelm, proposed a systematic survey of the road from Leipzig to Dresden with wooden, roadside posts at regular intervals. This prompted prince elector Augustus the Strong, on 18 June 1695, to order "that certain mileposts are to be erected". He charged the Kondukteur (building supervisor) Heinrich Niedhart with this task. The Electoral Saxon forestry superintendents were instructed to provide the wood, and the administrators of the electoral Saxon districts were to ensure that the posts were erected.

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